Caroline Aksich
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Writer, researcher, urban explorer, amateur botanist, turophile. Member of the Montreal diaspora. Proud Torontonian.
Articles by Caroline Aksich
Three websites that make it easier to buy Canadian
Goose by Hissing Mink, tote by iStock, cap by Local Laundry Buying Canadian has gone from a bumper-sticker sentiment to something approaching a national economic strategy. With newly announced US tariffs threatening to make everyday goods even more expensive, Canadians are responding in the most practical way possible: redirecting their dollars closer to home. Fortunately, supporting Canada no longer requires squinting at labels in the grocery aisle.
A 66,000-square-foot T&T location is coming to a North York mall
Photo via @tt_supermarket/Instagram T&T Supermarket, the 33-year-old Asian chain acquired by Loblaw in 2009, continues to test just how much can fit into a grocery store. Each opening brings another round of biggest-evers: biggest store, biggest bakery, biggest beauty section. On October 8, T&T will open its largest Ontario location yet, a 66,000-square-foot behemoth inside North York’s Empress Walk. It will be the chain’s 38th Canadian store and 41st overall, counting its growing US portfolio.
Toronto’s best lobby bars for star-spotting during TIFF
Cue the David Attenborough narration: there’s something almost safari-like about roaming the city in search of famous faces. Lobby bars make ideal watering holes, often with excellent sight lines on the hotel’s comings and goings. We rounded up 11 that are close to the action, ranking them from guaranteed sighting to long-shot territory. But even if no A-listers appear, the cocktails should be consolation enough.
This renowned dim sum restaurant is making an $8,888 dish for TIFF
Photo by Jessica Blaine Smith Toronto is no stranger to stunt menu items. We’ve had cocktails garnished with diamond necklaces and $1,000 surf-and-turf platters served with monogrammed steak knives. And now there’s Lai Wah Heen’s $8,888 TIFF promo dish, which has the price tag of a publicity stunt but none of the usual swag.
Eleven decadent new frozen treats to enjoy this summer
You’d expect a chocolate-loaded ice cream sandwich from Soma. After all, David Castellan and Cynthia Leung have spent years cementing their status as Toronto’s chocolatier royalty. But, this summer, they’re going all in on strawberries. Fruity gelato packed with Niagara-grown Malwina berries—ruby red, candy sweet and available just two weeks of the year—is tucked between two vanilla sable cookies. It’s basically June, frozen. $8.88.
Sweat and Tonic is opening a new 18,000-square-foot location in Yorkville
A rendering of the reception area Toronto fitness empire Sweat and Tonic is planting its third flag: an 18,000-square-foot location in Yorkville slated to open this October. The gym-spa hybrid will occupy the second floor of 11 Yorkville, a recently completed 67-storey condo tower. In 2019, when the brand first burst onto the scene at Yonge and Shuter, it sent shockwaves through the city’s fitness landscape.
You need to leave Toronto for these unique farm-to-table experiences
The first wave of farm-to-table dining—championed in Toronto by chefs Michael Stadtländer and Jamie Kennedy—was about bringing the farm to the city. Restaurants traded imported prestige for southern Ontario–grown goodness, proving that local could be a luxury. Forty years later, the tables have turned: rather than haul the harvest into Toronto, a new generation of restaurateurs is enticing city folk out to the fields, where dinner is cooked just steps from where it’s grown or raised.
This luxury escape two hours north of Toronto looks like a Hamptons beach house
The southern Georgian Bay region is quietly becoming cottage country for people who plan their weekends around dinner reservations. Toronto food lovers are making the two-hour pilgrimage for Michelin-starred meals at the Pine and hyper-local feasts at Down Home and Naagan. Sandy beaches, ski hills and kilometres of scenic hiking trails provide plenty of reasons for repeat visits no matter the season. Thornbury, however, has remained curiously short on places worthy of an overnight stay.
This quirky new Collingwood restaurant has a Michelin connection
Name: Lore Contact: 100 Pine St., Collingwood, 705-351-8673, lorecollingwood.ca, @lore_collingwood Neighbourhood: Collingwood Owners: Jeremy and Cassie Austin Chefs: Executive chef Jeremy Austin and chef de cuisine Evaristo Cajili Accessibility: Not fully accessible Last year, the Pine did something almost unheard of: it made enough noise that Michelin inspectors found their way to the tiny village of Creemore, nearly two hours north of Toronto. They left impressed.
This quirky new Collingwood restaurant has a Michelin connection
4 hours ago The story of Dan Tana’s, in many ways, is the story of Los Angeles. In 1980, Dan Tana’s burst into flames. At the time, the Tana family was vacationing on a remote Yugoslav island when a telegram arrived: “The restaurant burned down. Call me, Pearl,” recalls Katerina Tana, one of Dan Tana’s …
What Yan Dining Room chef Eva Chin eats in Hong Kong
Yan Dining Room may be the city’s most exciting tasting restaurant. Operating out of Hong Shing’s private dining room, it has a faintly clandestine energy, but that’s only part of the draw. What makes dining here special is that it feels like a dinner party: all 26 guests enjoying the same course at the same time. The atmosphere is loud, communal and intimate, the food personal and precise. At its core, chef Eva Chin’s cooking is about translating memory.
“Nothing in the show has ever been faked”: How a former Swiss Chalet fry cook became YouTube’s endearingly frazzled Anti-Chef
Photo by Samantha Falco More than a half a million subscribers tune in to watch Jamie Tracey—the self-proclaimed Anti-Chef—emotionally disintegrate while attempting to cook elaborate recipes that are wildly beyond his skill level. Tracey started his YouTube channel in 2017, shortly before leaving Toronto. Now, after nearly a decade abroad—bouncing between Belgium, London and New York—he’s finally back home.
Where Rudy owner Luke McCann eats in the Annex and Yorkville
Is Toronto the ultimate fast-food incubator? Swiss Chalet, Harvey’s, the Burger’s Priest and Fresh all began as single restaurants before growing into quick-service chains that eventually landed in corporate portfolios. These days, independently owned Toronto-born chains are becoming an endangered species. Rudy is one of the few holdouts. Back in 2016, Rudy was a tiny College Street burger joint serving smash burgers before half the city knew what a smash burger was.
Where to Eat Now
Another year, another round of consistently excellent restaurants. It seems that nothing—not the precarious economy, not the turbo-charged price of groceries—can stop Toronto’s food scene. But they can change it. Chefs with fine-dining backgrounds are turning to more casual formats, menus are tighter and, wow, are there ever a lot of burgers, pasta and wedge salads—not that we’re complaining. Difficult times spark creativity, and we found examples of this in every corner of the city.
One hundred pivotal moments in the history of Toronto dining
1. The Senator (est. 1929) Born as the Busy Bee Diner, renamed in ’48, a jazz club added in ’90—and still serving fry-ups almost a century on. 2. The Lakeview (est. 1932) A 24-hour time capsule in Trinity-Bellwoods with more IMDb credits than some C-listers. The Lakeview screenshot via YouTube 3. Peter Pan (est. 1936) A no-frills Queen West lunch spot for 15-cent onion sandwiches gets hip in ’74, when Sandy Stagg and co. take over. A young Susur Lee makes a kitchen cameo. 4. Fran’s (est.
In Hong Kong, Toronto chef Eva Chin finds culinary greatness in both stalls and stars
Article content Chin taking a bite of charcoal-roast goose at Yung Kee. Photo by CAROLINE AKSICH /POSTMEDIA Article content “In North America, people want everything in one place. In Hong Kong, you go to one place for one thing,” she told me. “Sometimes three places for one meal. Article content Here, specialization isn’t a quirk. It’s survival. With this much density, you stand out by doing one thing better than anyone else. One dish refined to the point of obsession. You don’t improve by adding.
In Hong Kong, Toronto chef Eva Chin finds culinary greatness in both stalls and stars
“In North America, people want everything in one place. In Hong Kong, you go to one place for one thing,” she told me. “Sometimes three places for one meal. Here, specialization isn’t a quirk. It’s survival. With this much density, you stand out by doing one thing better than anyone else. One dish refined to the point of obsession. You don’t improve by adding. You improve by repeating, obsessing, perfecting.
In Hong Kong, Toronto chef Eva Chin finds culinary greatness in both stalls and stars
After seven years away, the chef behind Yan Dining Room returns in pursuit of perfection — from plastic stools to Michelin-starred restaurants Chef Eva Chin, the chef behind Toronto's neo-Chinese restaurant Yan Dining Room, tucks into the sesame-skin suckling pig at Moon Bay in Hong Kong. /POSTMEDIA Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page.
In Hong Kong, Toronto chef Eva Chin finds culinary greatness in both stalls and stars
After seven years away, the chef behind Yan Dining Room returns in pursuit of perfection — from plastic stools to Michelin-starred restaurants • Chef Eva Chin, the chef behind Toronto's neo-Chinese restaurant Yan Dining Room, tucks into the sesame-skin suckling pig at Moon Bay in Hong Kong. /POSTMEDIA Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page.
For $200,000, this director transformed his art deco loft into a live-in film set
The Place A 1,650-square-foot, two-bedroom, two-plus-one-bathroom live-work hard loft in an art deco former warehouse near Fort York. The History For years, director Justin Wu was obsessed with the Tip Top Lofts on Lake Shore, combing through old listings and memorizing floor plans until he narrowed his interest to just four units. When one of them surfaced on Facebook Marketplace in September of 2024, Wu lobbed a lowball offer.
What’s on the menu at Canada’s very first Eggslut
Name: Eggslut Contact: 545 King St. W., 647-426-7258, eggslut.ca Neighbourhood: King West Owner: Westridge Hospitality Chef: Alvin Cailan Previously: Porchetta and Co. Accessibility: Not fully accessible The billboards announcing “a new slut in town” have had prudish Torontonians clutching their pearls—and everyone else lining up for breakfast. This city, it seems, is horny for eggs—and for US restaurant concepts.
Toronto’s best afternoon tea experiences
Caught between colonial hangover and cultural osmosis, Canada has always teetered between British tradition and American influence. But, in an era when a certain president continues to float the idea of Canada as the 51st state, leaning into our royalist roots feels like a particularly refined form of protest. Here, all kinds of splendid tea services where you can put those pinkies (the demure, salon version of elbows) up.
The best Toronto restaurants that double as affordable wedding venues
If you’re planning a wedding in Toronto, there’s no shortage of magnificent backdrops—botanical gardens, the Toronto Reference Library, even Old City Hall. But, when you factor in cost, the options get slimmer. Sure, there are the legendarily affordable museum and cultural centre rentals, but they’re also legendarily booked up. If you want to save money, restaurants can offer surprisingly solid value—especially if you’re willing to wed on a weeknight.
Can you find this missing freeziemobile?
Geladona owners Florenca Bortolacci (left) and Mariana Palhares, with their freeziemobile in happier times. Photo by Daniel Neuhaus In a bold, unsolicited act of “re-homing,” a vintage ice cream bike has disappeared—and its owners are trying to track it down before peak popsicle season. Florenca Bortolacci and Mariana Palhares run Geladona, a Corso Italia café serving brunch, sandwiches and desserts.
Four family members, nine seats, 20 courses: inside Toronto’s sweetest new omakase restaurant
Name: The Onda Contact: 750 St. Clair Ave. W., theonda.ca, @onda_toronto Neighbourhood: Wychwood Owners: Yoongil Choi, Yoonmi Choi, Sunil Woo and Jiyoung Kim Chefs: Yoongil Choi (Yasu, Okeya Kyujiro) and Sunil Woo Accessibility: Not accessible (washroom in basement) Toronto has no shortage of omakase counters, but few feel this personal: one service a night, nine seats, four family members and nearly 50 years of experience behind the knives.
The Best Cellar List
Photo by Lauren Miller 1 The Vintner Who: Lucas Labelle, owner of Labelle Wines, and Tyler Reaume, publicist Neighbourhood: Summerhill Size of collection: 650 bottles Most expensive bottle: 2017 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti La Tâche Grand Cru Best bottle: 2017 Domaine Jean Yves Bizot Echezeaux Grand Cru Best bargain: Domaine Les Carmels Les Caprices Merlot Before Labelle ever dreamed of launching a wine agency, he and Reaume, his husband, were living in a condo teetering on the edge of a...
There’s a petition to double the space at Allan Gardens’ conservatory
Photo by Arrush Chopra/NurPhoto via Getty Images The conservatory at Allan Gardens is one of the most beautiful spaces in Toronto: a gorgeous Victorian building topped with a glass dome and filled with all manner of succulents, cacti and bromeliads. It’s also one of the few remaining public spaces in the city, functioning as a sort of public square with palms.
Five of the Toronto’s most hard-core new fitness clubs
Reformd Neighbourhood: Entertainment District Who Goes Here: The mat-Pilates-is-for-peasants crowd Best Perk: Flattering selfie lighting Bougie Factor: 4/5 What It Costs: $34 per visit or $360 a month for unlimited classes The punishing Pilates-adjacent workout known as Lagree has a cult following. It’s long been rumoured to be the secret behind toned, firm celebrity bodies—at least pre-Ozempic.
Inside the world’s toughest culinary showdown: The S. Pellegrino Young Chef Competition
Only a sliver of humanity is wired for kitchen life — those fueled by obsession, purpose and the thrill of feeding strangers night after night. Everyone else burns out. The Food Network fantasy of becoming the next Gordon Ramsay evaporates the moment reality hits: 70-hour weeks, thin margins and exhaustion that rivals medical residency. A few cooks, though, don’t flinch — they accelerate. Victoria Rinsma is one of them.
The best sauna–cold plunge circuits in Toronto - Toronto Life
In a city that treats burnout as a lifestyle, recovery has become a competitive sport. And in the past month alone, Toronto’s contrast-therapy scene has exploded. Five new openings—Aire, Sana, a second location of Alter, Löyly Floating Sauna and 10XTO’s Contrast Zone—have arrived in quick succession, all offering the same promise: get very hot, get very cold, repeat until your brain stops spiralling.
The outrageous customer behaviour Toronto restaurateurs can't stand
Photo by Dimensions/Getty Images There’s never been a more punishing time to be a restaurant owner in Toronto. With the cost of everything climbing and margins shrinking, restaurateurs are having to raise prices just to keep the lights on. As a diner, it’s hard not to feel the sting—going out for a meal is more expensive than it’s ever been. The trouble starts when that sting starts to feel like entitlement.
“I will always be in kitchens—even when I die:” Chef Didier Leroy on leaving LSL and what happens next - Toronto Life
Didier Leroy (left) with fellow LSL chefs Masaki Saito and Christian Le Squer Photo by Ashley van der Laan LSL, the city’s nine-seat, $680-a-head experiment in ultra-fine dining, has, up until now, been helmed by three heavyweights: Masaki Saito, Christian Le Squer and Didier Leroy—the Frenchest of Toronto’s French chefs and a fixture in this city’s kitchens for nearly four decades.
"Rodney was one of the great pearls of our industry": Toronto chefs and restaurateurs remember oyster expert Rodney Clark
Photo courtesy of the Clark family Toronto’s restaurant industry lost a singular force earlier this month. Rodney Clark, the PEI-born oyster expert, passed away on November 6 from heart failure. He was 75 years old. Known across the city as the “urban oysterman,” he was a fixture of Toronto’s food scene: part raconteur, part ringmaster, part seafood evangelist. Long before oysters were on menus city-wide, he showed Toronto diners that seafood could be fun, local and a little unruly.
The restaurant group behind Canoe and Aera just opened a new sky-high venue
The Financial District just got a posh new penthouse. SixtyEight is the result of an unlikely pairing: KingSett Capital, the real estate fund behind half of the city’s skyline, and Oliver and Bonacini, the restaurant group that has catered many of the city’s weddings. Together, they’ve built a 20,000-square-foot space on the—you guessed it—68th floor of Scotia Plaza that’s equal parts private lounge and high-altitude event venue. A section of the space is reserved for Scotia Plaza’s tenants.
Six of the city’s best private dining rooms for hassle-free holiday parties
Makilala 105 Church St., makilala.ca Private room capacity: 16 seated Perfect for: Groups looking to belt out tunes in between bites 1 Nuit and Jeff Regular are best known for their Thai empire. But, at Makilala, they’re featuring Jeff’s Filipino roots in a riotous spot where karaoke is considered a main course. The party room is furnished to look like Lola’s home, with family pictures and old trophies.
A Queen West cocktail bar is rebranding itself as an all-day restaurant with a "diner-ish" menu
Toronto’s restaurants are in year four of a squeeze that won’t quit. Since 2021, the cost of food, labour and rent has marched in one direction: up. Tapering, maybe, but never reversing. Menus shrink, hours tighten and the idea of a double-digit dinner bill now feels quaint. For Adrian Ravinsky, the owner of 416 Snack Bar and its younger sibling, Short Turn, the question isn’t how to stay afloat—it’s how to evolve.
Inside a weed-fuelled wellness getaway in Ontario
My toes are dancing. Tapping the air. Wriggling with glee. For a second — or maybe an hour (who can say?) — I’m miles from my consciousness, with only my extremities joyfully responding to the plucking of a mysterious string instrument somewhere above my head. Then, just as the two psychotherapists and the plant elder (yes, that’s the job title) break into off-key a cappella harmony, I crash back to reality.
A Toronto pizzeria took home first prize at Canada’s top pizza competition
Toronto just scored big at Canada’s top pizza competition—with a Detroit-style pie. Of course we did: we don’t have a signature pizza style of our own, but if there’s one thing Toronto does well, it’s cultural remixing. Give us a Motor City classic, then throw on some jerk chicken, mango chutney and a dash of chaos, and voilà—it’s suddenly very Toronto.
Iconic Dishes
Iconic Dishes Yannick Bigourdan grew up in the hospitality business, and you can feel and taste the decades of experience at The Carbon Bar, his Queen Street staple. Iconic Dishes Anthony Rose was already on every list of Toronto culinary legends from his Drake Hotel days. Fat Pasha took his reputation global. Iconic Dishes Some of Union restaurant’s most iconic dishes were dreamed up in a pickup truck before opening night. Ten years later, they’re still on the menu.
Will the latest reboot of the Melody Bar revive the Gladstone’s rizz?
On October 25, the Gladstone’s Melody Bar will get yet another reboot—this time as Cassette, a “retro-inspired restaurant and performance venue” promising a martini menu, diner-inspired food (pigs in blankets, burgers) and a monthly residency with Canada’s Drag Race alumna Tynomi Banks. It’s the hotel’s latest attempt to recapture the creative pulse that once made it the beating heart of West Queen West.
What to eat, drink and do at the city's new arcade bars
Why just drink a beer when you can pair your pint with a game of Pac-Man, ping-pong or pinball? Toronto’s nightlife has gone full barcade. Here, eight spots in the city where the menu comes with a side of fun, plus what to order at each. Oche Forget the dingy darts pubs of yore: this sleek King West game hall pairs nostalgia with tech. Thirteen interactive dartboards track your score (and remind you of the rules once the cocktails kick in), and the shuffleboards are tricked out with digital tallies.
The Old Spaghetti Factory's new sister spot is nothing like the kitschy red-sauce restaurant
Name: Eloise Contact: 42 The Esplanade, eloiserestaurant.ca, @eloisetoronto Neighbourhood: St. Lawrence Owners: Graham and Dan Hnatiw (Old Spaghetti Factory, Scotland Yard, Bar Cathedral) Chef: Akhil Hajare (Alo, Alo Bar, Bangkok’s Gaggan) Accessibility: Fully Accessible For more than half a century, the Hnatiw name has been stitched into the fabric of Toronto’s dining scene via the Old Spaghetti Factory, that 54-year-old temple to red sauce on the Esplanade.
This $7,000 drink is Toronto’s most expensive cocktail
From the restaurant that brought the city a $1,000 surf-and-turf platter comes a new stunt for the 0.01 per cent: the $7,000 Diamond Drip at Animl is now Toronto’s most expensive cocktail. Related: The $1,000 surf-and-turf platter at this King West steakhouse is Toronto’s wildest new splurge It’s not a hard-to-find Pappy Van Winkle or a dusty Louis XIII cognac driving the price of this over-the-top tipple.
Five Toronto bars (and one castle) hosting creepy Halloween pop-ups
When the mercury dips and the leaves begin to change colour, two types of people emerge: pumpkin-spice devotees and spooky-season enthusiasts. We’re proudly Team Halloween. Here, six pop-ups guaranteed to scare up some fun.
The Well is getting a swanky Mediterranean and Asian supper club
The Well keeps padding its already impressive culinary resumé. Toronto’s glossiest new mall opened with a who’s who of local restaurants and retailers, but lately it’s been attracting splashy international tenants as well.
Toronto's most-hyped pizzeria is getting its own chip flavour
Miss Vickie’s is going full carbs-on-carbs with its latest collaboration: the Canadian kettle-chip giant teamed up with Pizzeria Badiali, Toronto’s most-hyped pizza parlour for four years strong, on a vodka sauce flavour. Related: A super-popular pizzeria in Little Italy just opened a bar next door Crispy potatoes dusted with tomato tang and cheesy fat—it’s the consolation prize for when you round the corner at Argyle and Dovercourt to see the weekend line snaking into oblivion.
Why Abbey Gardens should be on your road-trip list
If eco-apocalyptic anxiety has you bracing for a Mad Max future, Abbey Gardens may be the antidote. Once a desolate 300-acre gravel pit, this swath of the Haliburton Highlands has been rehabilitated into a verdant refuge—a living rebuttal to your recurring nightmare of Ontario morphing into the Wasteland. This isn’t some government mega-project but the vision of a lone local octogenarian, John Patterson.
Where to eat, drink and party like a celebrity during TIFF
TIFF turns 50 this year—half a century of standing ovations, step-and-repeats, and that brief window when star-spotting becomes a citywide sport. A-listers roam the streets, jaywalking on Queen West, grabbing lattes like the rest of us and getting the best seats at our restaurants. Whether you’re fuelling up before a premiere or chasing cocktails after the credits, here are 15 places where you can see and be seen during this year’s film festival.
This free sculpture garden is less than 3 hours away
Imagine if Stonehenge had been built by one man with a cement mixer, a wheelbarrow and a stubborn refusal to stop. That’s Screaming Heads: an open-air opus by septuagenarian Peter Camani, who has spent the past four decades turning his 310-acre Almaguin Highlands property into a surrealist playground of towers, dragons, shrieking trees and screaming monoliths.
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